It’s true, this time of year always just seems to be crazy packed with things going on. Here’s what we’ve mostly been up to these past few weeks.
My mom and dad came to town for a week, which was great. The kids had fun as always having grandma and grandpa around in their boundless energy as playmates, park-walking partners, and bedtime story readers. Got one nice photo of my dad w/ Milo.
My dad and I tackled a few projects in the backyard. We replaced the crumbling, moss encrusted fiberglass patio cover on our back deck, which had been on the to-do list for quite a few summers. (Of course I only have a picture of dad doing the tear-off, no photos of the finished product…it came out really nice) We also whipped up a nice little chicken tractor for our new baby chickens (did I mention we got some new baby chickens? well, we did!). Managed to build up the frame with some old window frames we had taking up space in the garage, and designed the rest as we went. I still need to put a door on the front of the nestbox (and quick too, the baby chickens are growing rapidly, but more about them later).
Nicki took everyone to a tulip festival down south of town one day while I was at work and I think the kids had some fun, though I hear there may have been some napping issues and tired kids.
I had my 33rd birthday a couple of weeks ago, and couldn’t have asked for a nicer day. Had a nice leisurely morning, and then headed out for a hike in oaks bottom, a little wetland and forest kind of right in our neighborhood. It’s one of those places you go by so frequently that you feel like you know so you forget to stop once in a while and explore it a little bit. We had a really nice walk, found a little pond full of tadpoles, some little frogs, played hide and seek, and made a promise to come back with a picnic lunch and spend a whole day down there exploring some day. Our good pal Michael Hurley was in town and he came over for the afternoon and we spent the rest of a lazy spring afternoon playing music in the backyard. Milo and Anna joined in the fun too.
Then the following weekend we were out at the coast for the westwind music/dancing/campout get together we go to every year. I’ve written about it here each year, to the point where there doesn’t seem to be much else to say. It’s in a gorgeous spot right at the mouth of the Salmon River, south of Cascade Head. We had mostly rainy/overcast weather this year, but it didn’t really put much of a damper on anything. (I know I’m about to wear out this “film grain” setting on our camera, but I’m really liking some of the pictures we’ve been taking with it. It does some really interesting things with the light, and I think it does do a pretty good job of giving it a “film” quality).
Westwind was particularly fun this year if only to watch Milo go crazy for all the guitars, fiddles, banjos, mandolins, upright basses, accordions, etc. I brought along Anna’s guitar (which for now is Anna and Milo’s guitar until I get around to making one for him) and the mandolin I just finished and we did our best to get in on some of the little jams here and there. Milo’s always happy to sit and strum for a while.
Here’s one of the few photos I have of the baby chickens where you can actually see all three of them. There’s a barred rock (Kingston), a Rhode Island Red (Rosie Featherfly), and an Americauna (Amarillo). Ok…Amarillo was much yellower as a chick. I kind of hate to say it, but for some reason these chickens are way more of a handful than our last batch. They always seem wound up, and they squawk and dart away and try to escape whenever you need to pick them up. I don’t know if we were particularly lucky with the last batch, or particularly unlucky with this batch, or maybe these ones will mellow out with time. For now they are still living in the brooder in the house, but they should be ready to move outside into the tractor in a week or two.
Last week was Nicki’s birthday. 38! I took the day off from work and we made the most of a weird schedule day. Anna had school which kind of chopped the day in half. We did some fun stuff around town in the morning, but the best part of the day was when we picked up Anna and went out to Round Lake, north of Camas, WA for a hike. Both kids were pretty tired, and the whole hike was actually kind of a struggle until the end, but when we made it to the meadow of blooming camas lilies and wild onions, everything got better. Camas is a native lily around here, it was a food crop for native people hundreds of years ago, and was once so ubiquitous in the valleys that whole fields would bloom and it would look like a bright blue lake. There aren’t many places left where big fields of camas still bloom, and it’s always a treat to see. I’m just noticing that the pictures don’t even come close to doing it justice. Some things (most things I suppose) are best experienced first hand.
We also had mother’s day this past weekend, but don’t have any photos. It was a beautiful day and Nicki had gone to the coast for the weekend with some girlfriends. We made some brunch for when she got home, but it was late enough that it became dinner instead. We spent a little time in the yard, and then spent the evening with friends. Things seem to be starting to slow down a little now. The weather is getting nice here, and we’ve got some work to do in the garden before all the summer adventures begin.
Hope all is well w/ all of you.
